


Parachutes

by GoldenSlumbers



Category: Degrassi, Degrassi the Next Generation
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, References to Suicide, Season/Series 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 08:50:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenSlumbers/pseuds/GoldenSlumbers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cam is dead, but life goes on. Maya isn't broken. She doesn't need to be put back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parachutes

**Author's Note:**

> Based heavily on the TeenNick and Much promos for 12C. Possible spoilers.

It takes a while—longer than it should have, probably—for her to put the pieces together. The sirens, the flashing lights, the police cars and ambulances whizzing past. The screams. That awful, crushing _thud_ of a body hitting the pavement. _A body hit the pavement_. The shrieks, the _oh my gods_ and cries for help. And then, silence—the most deafening of all.

The days that follow are kind of a blur, honestly. She sees a group of girls huddled together in the hallway, sobbing. Girls who probably never spoke to Cam once. Someone on the faculty has the bright idea to put together a memorial, but it looks more like a shrine to the Ice Hounds. Cam would have hated it.

Strangers approach her to offer their condolences. Cam's mom calls her, which is weird because they had never spoken before (and it occurs to Maya later that they never will again). Tori—the same Tori who refused to talk to her a week ago—texts her every five minutes to see if she's okay.

But she is okay.

She doesn't feel anything.

\--

At night she closes her eyes and sees him, falling. They tumble through the air together in a seemingly endless descent, and it's peaceful, almost. Like they're skydiving, and at any moment they'll pull open their parachutes and float upward.

Except they can't.

She looks at Cam, terrified, but he smiles and takes her hand.

"Don't you get it, Maya? I'm free."

_Thud._

She bolts awake.

\--

Mr. Simpson asks her if she wants to help plan the memorial service, or at least say some words. She politely declines. When everyone else is crowded in the auditorium, she sits in the music room alone and sobs.

Then her sadness turns to anger and she hates him for leaving her like this, pitied by friends and family and teachers and people she's never even met. And she hates him for not saying goodbye. She hates him because she'll never know why he did it and she'll never understand. He's dead and she can never forgive him, and she hates him for being so selfish and weak. If he had just told her how he was feeling, if he had trusted her, if he had said _something_ , maybe she could have helped him before it was too late.

And then she hates herself.

\--

He's been gone barely two weeks when she gets invited to a party, a massive parents-out-of-town-for-the-weekend kind of party with "bad idea" written all over it. It's exactly what she needs.

Zig and Tori, who are pretending to tolerate each other for Maya's sake, insist on coming with her.

"You mean so you can keep an eye on me," she says accusingly. They glance at each other and don't deny it.

Maya hates the taste of beer, but she hates it a lot less by the time she's on her third. She notices Zig frowning at her from across the room and shrugs it off. He appears beside her moments later.

"Maybe you should slow down," he says.

"Maybe _you_ should lighten up. It's just beer."

"But you never drink, and you're on your third."

She glares at him. "Didn't realize you were keeping count." She takes a final swig and waves the empty bottle in his face. "Now it's time for number four."

He grimaces visibly, and she sighs.

"It's a party, Zig. I'm allowed to have fun."

"Sorry." He looks at his shoes. "I'm worried about you."

"Well, don't. I'm fine." She makes a point of smiling. "See?"

He hesitates a moment before nodding. "Okay," he says, like he wants to believe her.

She turns on her heel and makes her way back into the crowd, dancing until her feet go numb.

\--

She's lying down on an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room. Where is she? The room is spinning. She looks to her side, and an unfamiliar boy is smiling at her. She can hear the muffled sounds of a party in the adjacent room.

Maya studies the boy carefully, trying to place him.

"Everything okay?" His voice is lovely and rich. He seems genuinely concerned.

She briefly wonders how much she had to drink, then shakes it off. It doesn't matter. "I think I blacked out for a minute." 

This makes him laugh. There's a musical lilt to his laughter, which appears to be contagious. Maya can't help giggling too.

He reaches over to stroke her cheek, and she doesn't flinch. Something about his presence is oddly comforting.

"How does a gorgeous girl like you not have a boyfriend?" he asks softly.

"I did… until a couple weeks ago."

He shakes his head in disbelief. "He dumped you? Idiot."

"No… he just… left." Maya frowns. "He didn't even say goodbye."

"Sounds like a jerk."

"Yeah." She gazes into the boy's soft brown eyes, and smiles. "But I don't want to talk about him. I'm ready to move on."

"Good."

Their lips meet, and his tongue is in her mouth, and he's kissing her in a way that Cam never would (and never will). He tastes like beer and nachos, and he's definitely not Cam, and it's fine. She closes her eyes and it's fine. The rest of the world melts away.

\--

She wakes up the next morning to the sound of a familiar and angry voice in her ear. "What were you thinking?"

Maya rubs her eyes and looks around. The sunlight filtering through the windows is nearly blinding, but she's definitely in her own bedroom, which is a good sign. Tori is standing a few feet away, scowling with her arms crossed. That's not a good sign.

"How did you get in here?" she manages to ask. Her head is pounding and her throat is dry. 

"Your mom said I could come up. We need to talk about what happened last night."

Maya groans, pulling herself into an upright position. "You don't need to lecture me about how I drank too much. This hangover is punishment enough."

"No, I mean... I saw you with that guy." Tori sits down on the bed beside her.

"So?"

"So?" Tori's eyes widen in disbelief. "So? You practically had sex with him!" she hisses.

Maya is temporarily stunned. _She's lying, right?_ She remembers kissing him and then... well, she got home somehow. "Wait, were you, like, spying on me?"

"Look." Tori reaches into her coat pocket for her phone, swiping rapidly through the screens until she pulls up a video. She presses play and it's Maya and the boy, and the strange bed in the strange room. "I knew you wouldn't remember. That's why—"

"You _filmed_ me?"

"I wanted you to be able to see yourself. Cam died and you're acting like nothing's wrong—"

"Tell me, Tori, how the hell am I _supposed_ to act?"

"Not like this. Getting drunk and hooking up with some random guy at a party! Do you even know his name?"

Maya avoids her gaze. "I cannot _believe_ this."

"I think you need to talk to someone. You're keeping everything bottled up inside and that's not good! Maybe you should come to grief counseling with me tomorrow."

"I don't need grief counseling. I don't need a bunch of strangers who didn't even know Cam telling me how sorry they feel."

"I just want to help you!" Tori cries, blinking back tears.

Maya should be touched, probably, but she's not. She resents being told that she needs to be saved. She's not broken. She doesn't need to be put back together.

"Thanks, Tori," Maya says carefully, "but you don't have to worry about me." She smiles, knowing it'll sting.

\--

At school on Monday, Maya walks through the halls like she has something to prove. She ignores the quickly-averted gazes of students who pretend they weren't staring. They don't matter to her, but she scans their faces, looking for a certain someone. Finally she spots him: the boy from the party.

"Hey!" Maya walks up to him and grins. "I was looking for you. I wanted to tell you I had fun the other night."

He eyes her skeptically. "Yeah. Me too."

"Do you want to hang out later?"

"I don't know, Maya."

She doesn't remember telling him her name. She still can't remember his.

Then he blurts, "Why didn't you tell me you were dating that kid who killed himself?"

"What?"

"You said your boyfriend _left_ , like he moved out of town or something."

Maya blinks. "I just… I don't know. I didn't want to like, ruin the moment or whatever. And," she adds, reaching out to touch his arm, "I like you."

He takes a step back and stares at her incredulously. "Your boyfriend _committed suicide,_ and you're off partying and lying about it? You're on the rebound _already_? What is wrong with you?"

She feels her skin growing hot. "Fuck you. You don't know me. You don't know _anything_ about me!"

He shakes his head with a look of disgust that she's never seen before. "I don't want to, either."

She watches him walk away, her heart pounding furiously. He's wrong. Zig and Tori and the boy with no name can judge her and say whatever they want, but she knows the truth. They're weak, all of them. Just like he was. And she doesn't need any of them.

\--

It's unseasonably cold for May, and the wind whips across her face with an almost icy chill. Or maybe it just feels colder because she's on the roof.

She's on the roof.

She's not sure what led her here, but she's here, and she surveys her surroundings. The garden is still in disarray; the few remaining plants dead and abandoned. After a few hockey players destroyed it, the students had planned to rebuild, but then—well, then, the unthinkable happened, and no one comes up to the roof anymore.

Maya's amazed, actually, that the door wasn't locked. Leave it to Mr. Simpson for a massive oversight like _that_.

Cam is dead but life goes on.

Suddenly she hears the door slam and she groans. Of course, why lock up when there are cameras installed on every mountable surface? She turns around, expecting to see Mr. Simpson, bracing herself for another angry lecture. But it's not him.

It's Zig. He runs toward her.

"Maya! What are you doing?"

He's staring at her with such intensity that she shivers, or maybe it's the wind. She curses herself for not bringing a coat.

"How'd you know I was here? Did you follow me?"

He says nothing and looks away, which seems to answer the question.

"Great," Maya says. "That's great. I can't even be alone for one second—"

"Look, I'm sorry I followed you, but I'm not going to leave you alone _on the roof_!"

"Why? Think I'll jump?"

Zig flinches. "I don't know! I have no idea what's going on in your head anymore." And then he says the words that make her blood boil. "This isn't you."

"I am so sick of people telling me who I'm supposed to be!" she screams.

He stares at her in disbelief. He doesn't get it. Nobody gets it.

_I am all out of ideas, Maya. It's like my head isn't screwed on right._

The wind blows harder and she lets it carry her, pushing her in the direction of where he stood. She climbs up onto the ledge and holds her arms out at her sides.

"Maya, please!" Zig sounds frantic. "I'm sorry. Please get down, and I promise I'll leave you alone—"

"I could have stopped him," she interrupts, looking down at the pavement below. What went through his mind before he jumped? What were his last thoughts?

"No, you couldn't have… Nobody knew what he was going to do."

"I knew. He told me he was sad and he wanted to be happy. And you know what I said?"

Zig doesn't dare speak.

"Do you want to know?" There's a strong gust of wind and she nearly loses her footing.

"What? What did you say?" She can hear his urgency. She doesn't turn around.

" _Then be happy._ " Her voice cracks on the words. "Great advice, huh?"

"But it's not your fault—"

"I knew he was depressed and I didn't do a damn thing about it! And then I got mad at him for the stupidest reasons, instead of just listening to what he was trying to tell me." She spins around and searches Zig's eyes. "What kind of person doesn't hear her own boyfriend's cries for help?"

"Maya, stop. There's nothing you could have done."

"You don't know that. I was so selfish, Zig. I broke his heart—"

"Stop it! He loved you. He told me the day he died."

"What?" Her eyes flash with anger. "And you waited until now to tell me this?"

Zig shakes his head. "When he said that, I thought it was, like, a warning… like he was telling me to stay away from you. But now I think… maybe…"

He stops. Tears are streaming down her face.

"He was saying goodbye," she breathes.

Zig holds out his hand and helps her down from the ledge.

"I really miss him," she says, burying her face in his chest.

\--

It takes a while—longer than it should have, obviously—for her to realize it's okay to feel pain. It's okay to be angry, and it's okay to be sad, and it's okay to feel broken beyond repair. Cam is really gone, and she recognizes now that a part of herself went with him. But it's also okay to heal.

She has the dream again, the one where they're falling together. They tumble endlessly toward the ground, but this time, she's not afraid.

"Ready?" she asks. She squeezes his hand.

"Now," he says, smiling wide.

They pull open their parachutes and float away.


End file.
